Eyeing first-time voters, Indian Youth Congress launches nation-wide “Pehlacampaign

Pehla Vote: Congress Takes Its First Step For 2024 Lok Sabha Elections

Bengaluru, August 11: Pehla Vote is a nation-wide campaign by Indian Youth Congress which will focus on attracting first-time enthusiastic youth voters (those in the age group 18 to 23) towards the Indian National Congress for the Lok Sabha elections to be held in 2024.

With young and first-time voters emerging as a crucial vote chunk for all national parties, pehla vote campaign aims at increasing the vote share among this cohort for the Congress Party through interactive and tech-driven campaigns. The campaign will involve QR code for registration which will be mounted on a display truck. These trucks will move across the state with strategic public hotspots like colleges, tuition hubs, bus stations and malls which see a higher footfall of first-timers.

India has 17.5 crore voters who fall under the 18 to 25 age bracket forming a formidable first-time voter base. In 2019, BJP had managed to gain 41% of votes in this cohort whereas Congress had
managed to gain only 24%.

Pehla Vote’ campaign aims to reverse this trend. Pehla Vote campaign will be spearheaded by General Secretary of the Indian Youth Congress, M.S. Raksha Ramaiah. This responsibility comes after he had successfully led the Yuva Matha campaign during the recently concluded Karnataka Vidhan Sabha Election.

Due to the Yuva Matha campaign, Congress gained 42% of first-time voters whereas BJP managed to gain 40%. This is the first-time since 2019 that Congress managed to gain more votes than BJP in any of the elections held. Following the success of the Yuva Matha campaign, IYC planned to revamp Yuva Matha as a nation-wide campaign called Pehla Vote.

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